Article ID: CBB153003192

Morphine Dreams: Auguste Laurent and the Active Principles of Organised Matter (2021)

unapi

Auguste Laurent began his work on morphine, nicotine, and other intoxicating alkaloids hopeful that he could reproduce them artificially from the byproducts of coal tar. After successfully creating artificial alkaloids, he collaborated with Jean-Baptiste Biot to determine that while plant-derived alkaloids were optically active, his artificial ones were not, further establishing a link between the action of molecules upon polarised light and their action upon the animal economy, and a firm line between natural and artificial products later taken up in the work of Louis Pasteur. This paper places this work in the context of a long tradition in which chemists, naturalists, and pharmacists variously used “active principles” to refer both to the particular living nature of substances, and to their ability to act on the human body.

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Authors & Contributors
Gootenberg, Paul
Chasin, Alexandra
Williams, Peter O.
Spillane, Joseph F.
Rae, Ian D.
Padwa, Howard
Concepts
Narcotics and drugs
Pharmacy
Opium and opium trade
Medicine and government
Organic chemistry
Medicine and politics
Time Periods
19th century
20th century
20th century, early
18th century
17th century
16th century
Places
United States
France
Great Britain
Latin America
Americas
Germany
Institutions
Nicholas Pty Ltd
United States. Federal Bureau of Narcotics
Wellcome Research Laboratories
University of Melbourne
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